In an EXCLUSIVE interview with Firstpost’s Lachmi Deb Roy for ‘Not Just Bollywood’, Arun Gopalan, director of Tehran says, “I wanted John Abraham’s shirt to be a little more loser, but every time when we struggled to keep it loose, it would get tighter. He has got big biceps…”

The twists and turns to this film are plenty. From the very beginning the geopolitical tension between Iran and Israel is what makes the story strong. John Abraham delivers his career-best performance. The script and the cinematography are solid and it never thins down and that is the best part of Tehran.

In an interview with Firstpost, Arun Gopalan, director of
_Tehran_ talks about how the film was cut down drastically to keep it crisp and in the process a lot of ’s scenes of Manushi Chhillar were chopped off from Tehran which is now showing both on Netflix and Zee5.

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Edited excerpts from the interview: 

The movie was supposed to come out in theatres, but you all changed it to the digital platform. Is it keeping in mind that the film is for a certain audience and not the regular theatre-going audience?

Though I wasn’t a part of that decision. There are four languages in the film. This film needed subtitles. How it would have survived in theatres, I really don’t know. But I thought it would look lovely on the big screen. We had some screenings and the film looked so good on screen. There are certain elements of sound design which is so good. The music is beautiful and I felt that these things could be experienced in theatres and the shots were too good.

Tehran Movie Review

Making John Abraham do films like The Diplomat and now
_Tehran_ where we don’t see him flexing muscle too much. So, was it a conscious effort to make him do films which are different from the regular?

I wanted his shirt to be a little more loose, but every time we struggled to keep it loose, it would get tighter. I don’t know if he was working out a little extra. But we can’t deny that he has got big biceps. But the idea was definitely to underplay his image and not the image that we see of John on screen. I really liked his look in Pathan.

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Most of the film don’t have much dialogues and yet messages were being delivered and Manushi Chhillar did not have dialogues at all except for a few words. So, was that also a conscious decision?

No actually, there were several scenes with her and the film was for two and a half hours, but we had to bring it down to this duration. We had a lot of scenes and it was pacey, but in the process of keeping it crisp, we had to cut down on her scenes.

In fact, there were scenes which were written for her where she was going through illness. There are three stages of the illness that we show without saying a word. It is designed like that. There was a scene where there was a certain bonding between Vijay and her, so that relationship was beautiful. In the process of keeping the film crisp, we had to cut on her part.  But the crispness worked for us and could drive the story as fast as possible. In the process of keeping the film crisp, a lot of Manushi Chiller’s scenes were cut all through and a lot of other scenes.

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What was the research that went behind Tehran?

The research was pretty intense. One was meeting these people and the other reperch was what was available on the net. There is a general liking between me, my writer Ashish, Sandip and John. All four of us were there and each one is bated on the current state of affairs. My challenge was how do I make this more relevant and understand the characters and their motivations. The main thing in the film was how deeply personal these decisions were. Each character shown in the film is a real hero.

WATCH the trailer of Tehran on Netflix and Zee 5 here: